Editorial: Use Of Waterways Varies Around The World

Normally we do not respond editorially when readers write to express thoughts about this column, but this week there is good reason. The letter from David G. Barber (May 23) is about our editorial relating to canals and tourism. The writer, of Hopedale, Mass., is president of the American Canal Society.

When Barber said we "overlooked a few points," he is correct. We are not experts in tourism or in small canals and rivers not considered by the Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard to be navigable. In fact, we don't claim to be experts at anything. Hopefully, what we do share about waterways is a valuable contribution.

What we always try to do is to stir up debate. If we succeed, someone who is far more knowledgeable than we are will respond with information we don't have and advance the discussion. We thank Barber for doing that.

Those who follow this column regularly will recognize that one of our perceptions is that in some countries there is more recognition of the value of waterways and low-cost river transportation than there is presently in the United States. Only recently we wrote about U.S. towboats and barges being shipped to Brazil. This type of activity has been going on for nearly two decades. Our loss is their gain, so to speak.

As a publication that serves the towing industry and related operations, we seldom do serious research on canals and tourism. The subjects might surface occasionally in the Old Boat Column. So it is true that we may be inadequately informed, but from Barber's letter we now know more than we did before.

As for the size of a river having nothing to do with tourism, we suspect that is true. We also suspect that it is unlikely that small tourist craft will find a home on our larger rivers. There could be some concern about the danger of operating on them. A discussion of this subject was not our intent.

What we do see happening in the world is a reduction (at this time) of agricultural crops being moved to tidewater on the Mississippi River system, due partly because of the increased use of corn in the making of ethanol—ethanol plants are reducing the amount of corn, for example, that is available for export—and the decision by some Midwest farmers to switch to growing soybeans, which many of them ship via rail to the West Coast. This change in the industry is a result of market demand, and we expect ups and downs (as we see them) from time to time. (There is also looming in the future the danger of soybean fungus, and that, too, might change the market.)

South American countries are improving their waterways for economic reasons. They have an overabundance of crops, and they want to compete with the U.S. in the export market. We suspect that at this time, interest in recreational boating in South America is far less than interest in commercial towing. It was like that in the U.S., too, before detractors began trying to convince us that the towing industry must go the way of the buggy whip and that all waterways should be developed for recreation.

Commercial shipping on European waterways has been successful forever, it seems, but there is now an added feature. The European Union is stressing how much better the quality of life could be if shippers moved their goods by waterway rather than crowd the highways with more trucks. In the EU they go so far as to provide financial stimulus to shippers willing to switch to water transport. Redundant as it may seem, we reiterate that the Maritime Administration (U.S.) has distributed statistics related to pollution from trucks compared to pollution from towboats. The phenomenal difference is something never publicized by environmental groups, who claim repeatedly that they are working for cleaner air. (During a recent midweek U.S. 70 trip from St. Louis to an Indiana destination we noticed that trucks outnumbered cars.)

The fact that the Falkirk Wheel (May 9 editorial) represents the second most visited tourist attraction in Scotland was a fact we apparently missed when perusing the attraction's web site. What we asked in that editorial was "Do Europeans care about their waterways more than we do?" A "yes" or "no" answer cannot suffice because there are too many variables. What would be true in one region might not be true in another. As in the U.S., the people of the EU face opposition from environmentalists. We wonder if a proposal to build a Falkirk Wheel-type facility in the U.S. for recreational vessels would meet with the same opposition proposed commercial projects meet.

Our overall goal is to convince our readers (and have them help us spread the word) that low-cost water transportation and water resource development is a necessary part of our economic well-being. The entire country benefits. We think both commercial and recreational boating can contribute to that goal. Any effort to force the discontinuance of either would be counterproductive.

We encourage anyone with expertise in the subjects we cover to share their knowledge by way of a letter to the editor. How else can we expand our perception?

The Waterways Journal encourages letters to the editor.
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